What is Microsoft's Reading Coach?
In late 2021, Microsoft released Reading Progress - a tool designed to help students become better readers and save educators time. Now, a new update and integration is here: Reading Coach!
In late 2021, Microsoft released Reading Progress - a tool designed to help students become better readers and save educators time. Now, a new update and integration is here: Reading Coach. In this blog post, you’ll learn what Reading Progress is and how it works, tips and tricks and how Reading Coach can help your students. Click any subheading below to jump to that section.
What is Microsoft’s
Reading Progress?
Reading Progress is a free tool built into Microsoft Teams designed to support and track reading fluency in your class. Students record their reading on camera and submit it to you. Imagine this, the same type of technology used in the Flipgrid Shorts Camera, combined with the power of Immersive Reader and the distribution power of Microsoft Teams. All of these ideas together form Microsoft’s Reading Progress. If you’re interested in learning more about all the nitty gritty details, click here or the image below. We’ll walk you through everything!
Tips and Tricks When Using Microsoft’s Reading Progress
One of the things we love most about Microsoft’s Reading Progress is that it is appropriate for all ages. We love how it can quickly and efficiently assess our students and how it saves time grading running records. We also appreciate how easy it is to use. Once your students are in the assignment, they’re recording themselves in (literally) just several clicks. But now that we have had almost a full year working with Reading Progress, here’s a few tips we can share:
If you teach younger students, we recommend lowering the sensitivity.
Younger students may have difficulty enunciating clearly, which sometimes leads to errors. This can be remedied by lowering the sensitivity to “Less sensitive.”
Take advantage of the option to limit time.
Toggling on the time limit might prevent frustration if a student is struggling with a passage. If a student is fluently reading, they will still feel successful when the timer stops. This feature can be turned on/off when creating the assignment - directly under the “Number of Attempts."
Assignments are now editable!
A little known secret is that Reading Progress assignments are now fully editable! When Reading Progress launched, if you made a mistake on the assignment, you would have to delete it and start all over again. Now, in an assignment, click the three dots and then click “Edit assignment.” No more deleting!
Reading Progress isn’t just for running records.
If you’re a primary teacher, you can use it to assess sight words, too! That’s right…automatically grade sight words! You can learn all about how this works in our blog post. Click here or the image to read all about it!
What is Microsoft’s Reading Coach and How Can it Help My Students?
Microsoft’s Reading Coach is another free add on to Reading Progress. Now, after your students have completed reading a passage, Reading Coach will intelligently (and immediately) identify words that the student struggled with. It will then provide the list of words to practice, prior to the student turning in the assignment. Here’s how it works:
Once a student has stopped the Reading Progress recording, Reading Coach will generate a list of words that the student struggled with. The student can then take time to practice the word(s).
When students click on a word, they have the option to hear the word read allowed, stretch the syllables out, or (if available) “see the word,” which pops up an illustration describing the term. Students can earn a star on the word for correctly saying the word by clicking on the microphone (located on the bottom of the screen).
Students can easily go through the words using the arrows. Notice, all of this can be done prior to turning in the assignment. Reading Coach is optional, though, and students may bypass it by just turning the assignment in. We recommend training your students to take the time to use it, which will give them even more (independent) practice on terms they struggled with.
But, students aren’t the only ones in on the fun! Educators now have access to valuable insights (available through Microsoft Teams by clicking on a student’s assignment, then clicking “Insights.” This report will generate information like correct words per minute, accuracy rate, practiced words, and much more.
If you’re a primary teacher, you can also use Reading Coach to help your students practice their sight words! Check out our blog post for downloadable templates of the 220 Dolch (Sight) Words. Upload them one-by-one and then students can practice the words ten at a time. If a student misses a word, Reading Coach will automatically help tech it to them!
-- Stay tuned for more Microsoft Education ideas that you can use in your classroom! Be sure to follow us on social media (@TheMerrillsEDU everywhere) for more! 👓👗
For more tips, tricks and lesson ideas for making learning more interACTIVE, check out our books The InterACTIVE Class and Flipgrid in the InterACTIVE Class on Amazon!
How to Use Microsoft's Reading Progress
NO MORE RUNNING RECORDS! You read that right. Microsoft’s new Reading Progress will take these off your hands, freeing up time that you can dedicate to your students. Learn how it all works, here!
Running Records are crucial assessment pieces. We love having the data that shows how much our students have grown, but it takes a great deal of time to carry out Running Records. Microsoft understands the importance of them, but also understands that our time is valuable. This inspired them to develop their Reading Progress app. What if we told you that Microsoft used the same type of technology used in the Flipgrid Shorts Camera, combined with the power of Immersive Reader and the distribution power of Microsoft Teams. Yes, you read that right! Meet Microsoft’s Reading Progress app! Full launch of this tool is coming in late August!
In this blog post you’ll learn:
(Click on any subheading to jump to that section)
What is Microsoft’s Reading Progress and what does it do?
Reading Progress is a ⚡️FREE⚡️ tool that can be found within Microsoft Teams. Imagine if the developers of the Flipgrid Shorts Camera, Immersive Reader and Microsoft Teams all sat down at a table and collaborated on what to do next. Reading Progress uses the technology from the Flipgrid Shorts Camera to record a video of students as they read. The same type of technology that is used in Microsoft’s Immersive Reader then takes the video and intelligently looks for errors, mispronunciations, miscues and more - AUTOMATICALLY. You read that right. The technology does all the work. A full report is provided to the educator, who can go back and view the recorded video and listen back to how the student performed. If the technology marks a student as reading a word correct / incorrect, the educator has the ability to change it on their end. The end result is a full running record, all on video!
How to set up Microsoft’s Reading Progress app
Getting started with Microsoft’s Reading Progress app is simple! Follow these steps to get started.
1. Create a new document in Microsoft Word. (PDF’s will work if you have those, too.)
2. Type out what you would like your students to read.
3. Save a copy (you’ll eventually upload this as the assignment).
4. Launch Microsoft Teams.
5. From your Team, click Assignments.
6. Click the purple Create button located on the lower left side of the screen, then click Assignment.
7. Select the appropriate class /team to assign the passage to, then click Next.
8. Give the assignment a title (TIP: Include the reading level of your passage in the title).
9. Under the Instructions area, locate and click the purple Add Resources link.
10. Click the Reading Progress icon and fill out the information. Give the assignment a name (it can be the same as the title).
11. Now it’s time to upload your Word document (or PDF) reading resource / passage. Under Reading Passage (required), click on Upload a document. Upload the Word document or PDF that contains your passage.
12. After the upload process is finished, enter the reading level and genre. Adjust the number of attempts to any number that you would like (this is the number of chances students have to read / record themselves reading the passage).
13. Next, adjust the pronunciation sensitivity. This adjusts how sensitive the app should be when listening and estimating errors. (Note: educators can always manually edit errors for accuracy).
14. Toggle the Require video on or off. It’s defaulted to on and we recommend leaving it on, but some students may be reluctant or camera shy. In that case, their audio will be recorded but not the video.
15. Last, click Attach to add it to your class assignment. Then, click the purple Assign button on the top right corner to launch it!
Need to see it? No problem! Check out the tutorial below!
How do students use Microsoft’s Reading Progress?
The process for students to access assigned Reading Progress assignments is simple and can be done in just three clicks once they’re logged into Microsoft Teams. Follow these below to get started:
1. Have your students launch Microsoft Teams.
2. Once Teams has opened and loaded, students click on Assignments (located on the left hand panel, with the book bag icon).
3. All of the reading passages (and any other assignments you gave in Teams) will appear.
4. Students select one of the reading passage files and click on it to open it.
5. After the assignment opens, click on the passage which is attached under My work.
6. Once the assignment loads, click on the blue Ready? Let’s start! button to begin.
7. A countdown will start the recording process. When students are finished, they click the blue I’m done button to stop the recording process.
8. Students can watch themselves back (and repeat if you’ve allowed multiple attempts). One they’re ready to turn it in, they click the green Use this recording button.
9. Finally, click the purple Turn it in button to complete the assignment. If you see an animation pop up, you have successfully turned it in!
Check out video walkthrough below!
How to create reading passages for Microsoft’s Reading Progress
So you’re sold…But, how can you go about making the reading passages that you are assigning to your students? You’ve got several options:
Open a new Word document and type out what you would like your students to read. Save this file and then upload to your assignments on Teams.
Use the built in microphone to dictate the text in a Word document. Save this file and then upload to your assignments on Teams.
Those ways will get the job done, but if you’re looking for a more efficient method, check out Microsoft’s Lens. Lens is a cross platform app that converts images to PDF, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files, digitize printed or handwritten text, and save to OneNote, OneDrive, or your local device. Use Lens to scan your pre-made resources and have it turn them into Word documents automatically. Check out our short tutorial:
Once Lens has uploaded the file to your OneDrive, download / save a copy on your computer to upload it onto you assignments on Teams. It’s that easy!
Tips and tricks for using Microsoft’s Reading Progress
We’ve been fortunate enough to pilot this wonderful software for the past year. We’ve learned a lot during this time, so here are our most recommended tips for using Microsoft’s Reading Progress:
When listening back to a student’s video recording, if you click any word - the app will jump to that section of the video where the reader is reading. This is great for when the technology marks something as correct or incorrect and you want to listen to it without having to start the entire video over!
If your students are younger or wearing masks, you might want to lower the sensitivity. New readers may not enunciate words as clearly as more experienced readers. Adjusting this setting may help the technology with marking the words correctly.
Check out the data once the students turn in their work! We love how the technology automatically calculates everything.
ReadWorks Passages Available Directly in Reading Progress!
Now, educators can save even more time when using Reading Progress, all thanks to to Microsoft’s partnership with ReadWorks! Follow these steps to use a passage from the library:
Launch Microsoft Teams, then click Assignments.
Next, click Create followed by Assignment.
Select your preferred Team, then click Next.
Click on Attach, then click Reading Progress.
On the next screen, click Browse sample library. This launches the library where you can select an article of your choice.
You can narrow down the levels by selecting the appropriate grade level. If you select an article, you can also preview that article by clicking Preview.
Once you’ve found an article that you like, click Select. Complete the necessary steps on the following screen, then click Next.
This brings you back to the original assignment screen. Take a moment to make sure that all the information is filled out correctly, then click Assign. This will assign the assignment to your students and even send them a notification that there’s a new assignment due!
-- Please follow us on social media and tag us with how you’re using Microsoft’s Reading Progress in your classroom! 👓👗
For more tips, tricks and lesson ideas for making learning more interACTIVE, check out our books The InterACTIVE Class and Flipgrid in the InterACTIVE Class on Amazon!
